Bringing Balance to Boards

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#BalancedBoards #LadyValCorbett #WomenonBoards

At the February Business Women’s Networking lunch hosted by Lady Val Corbett, we are lucky to have specialists give advice on how women can grown their business and expand their reach in the world. Today was about how we might get onto a Board .. if that is a goal in our sights.

Our workshop speaker was Jeff Green, founder of Balanced Boards. His motivation behind launching this consultancy was his belief in the importance of inclusion, equality and equitable opportunities for all, regardless of gender, race, or age.

Jeff has many senior contacts in the city and particularly among senior executives at Board level. He confided that some of his male colleagues who are on the receiving end of his passionate crusade to rebalance the country’s Boardrooms .. and have been known to resist conversation about what a few call “diversity nonsense”. To get them re-engaged Jeff has reframed the diversity agenda as social inclusion and mobility. Now that he says, they are much more willing to get behind. When they are reminded, these executives do actually want their own daughters and grand daughters to have equal opportunity, now and in the future. To have balance on a board it’s not just women’s voices that are needed, it’s everyone from all those other under represented groups of race, social class and under privilege. Then the Board is more likely to have the richer and diverse debate about an organisation’s more sustainable future.

Jeff is now actively engaged with US-based companies who have, or want to have, a global reach. It is easy to open up these leaders to the possibility of taking on a woman when he points out that they are aiming internationally and yet all their board members speak the same language and in no way reflect the markets the company aspires to. As they look east to Europe and Africa, Jeff is proposing non-American women for the vacancies that are opening up. Sounds like a pretty neat move. 

• Getting onto the Board: If you want to makes change you have to be on the inside of the system and get as high up as you can get … even if you are actually a diversity hire. Grab the place and start working for others to join you. (Watch the movie on Amazon Prime called Late Night where this is the core story with spectacular results for change to the mono-culture of a Emma Thompson’s script-writing team who are all male, and white. See what happens when the female Asian woman joins the group!)
• What is a non-exec director? A non-executive director typically does not engage in the day-to-day management of the organization but is involved in policymaking and planning exercises. In addition, non-executive directors’ responsibilities include the monitoring of the executive directors and acting in the interest of the company stakeholders.
• Time and money:  can be 1-2 days a week with typical payment of £48,000 to £980,000 per year
• Starting out: some advise getting on a charity board as a good start. Yes it does give you some Board experience but Jeff says this may not be the best way, unless the charity is a passion project for you. Being a school governor also gives you good experience. 
• Good cv is needed: tailor your cv to really highlight your special skills and experience from which a company can benefit. Forget where you went to school, focus on what you can bring that will be of benefit and help grow the company.
• Soft skills are now much in demand so conveying your ability to be charismatic and articulate is helpful. Remember men are just as capable of these soft skills and the empathy, compassion and relationship building ability that women are deemed to have more of. It is often the culture that holds back these values so potentially the arrival of a woman (or more women) may create a bigger shift.

Jeff Green, founder of Balanced Boards, was guest workshop leader at Lady Val Corbett’s Women Business Networking lunch Feb 2020

• Your special contribution: How can you help the company innovate? what can you do to support the increased focus on mental health.
• Networking:  women often do not know where to network and they can end up networking with each other and not finding the right contacts for board positions. Jeff says to network in your particular domain, in your special industry or skill area. Contacts to higher levels can be gleaned if you focus there. He called this the lowest hanging fruit.
• Creating Change: Once on a Board you might find the need to shake things up … it is best to hold back on this until you have a sponsor to support you, preferably the Chair
• When to start: why wait til you are older? Young women in their 20s should start planning their progress to Board level, now.

Contact Jeff Green on Balanced Boards for more help getting onto a Board

After our session today with Jeff Green more women are on the case to the change this given the tips and roadmap that he highlighted for the Women’s Network

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How a chance conversation led Dame Stella to be the first female spy chief in the UK

Meeting the real life “M” …. Dame Stella Rimington sharing her life story

Last week I attended a special women’s lunch hosted by Lady Val Corbett. It was a celebrated of her 13 years of hosting a professional women’s network. Val always finds extraordinary women who have made it to the top of their field and invites them along to share their insights and life story. In most cases, it is not just how clever or courageous they were in being successful or high achieving, it is about how they managed to break, or circumvent, the system. That system, the world of work created during, and before, the twentieth century was created by men for men. This event’s speaker was a superlative example of a woman who achieved the pinnacle of leadership in a highly male field .. spying!

Dame Stella Rimmington, ex head of the MI5 and the first head to hold such a secretive job and be named publicly.  Stella has gone on to be a successful author of spy novels (drawing on her own first had experience of course) following the publication of her auto biography. Life stories of high profile and successful women are irresistible and the room was pin drop silent as Stella shared how she become head of the UK’s spies  … or “M” as we came to know her when Judi Dench famously played the role in Daniel Craig’s Bond movies… even copying her hair style and jackets she noted!

I’ll share three insights that might interest you.

1. Career Advice – make it up as you go along, just keep at it

Although there was never any career planning for Stella at least she decided she wanted one … and that presented its own difficulties in an era, the 1950s, when women were NOT supposed to have careers. After university she became an archivist and little did she know that the research she did there would later serve her in the Intelligence service. Once she was married it was difficult to countenance any kind of career but she ended up in Delhi as a Diplomat’s wife, simply expected to uphold several British social traditions of whist drives and jumble sales. Modern women looking back now from our vantage points in the twenty first century will feel appalled at the waste of intelligence and the frustration that must have been felt by women back then who were hungry for more than being just a wife.

Stella did not languish for long because, like a scene from a movie, someone whispered in her ear at a garden party about the spy service and she found herself recruited as a typist working for MI5 in 1967.  It did not seem to matter that she could not type .. in those days it was much more about WHO you were, rather than WHAT you could do! That was the beginning of her illustrious career where she would reach the very pinnacle. 

She was asked how she managed that career with marriage and motherhood. Well sadly, the marriage did not survive so she ended up a single mother and her advice for others navigating life and career was to “keep your feet on the path .. and struggle on”. Just keep at it!

2. As a woman, just being you will probably mean you are called Uppity and Difficult

When Stella returned to the UK and and got another job with MI5 she really did enter a male dominated sphere where the men were out in the world as the spies and the women were relegated to a different grade of work providing the back-in-the-office research support. As the era of equality started in the early 1970s, women were doing their best to move upward and onward and Stella was one of the first to break through. Any woman who did stand out from all their colleagues, by simply not being a man, would often be seen as uppity.

Fast forward 40-50 years and not that much has changed. MP Kenneth Clark famously referred to Prime Minster Theresa May’s tenacious quality by calling her a “bloody difficult woman”. And the London Evening Standard newspaper this week highlights an interview in Tatler Magazine with actress Kate Beckinsale. Often referred to as a “Diva” she denied any special, attention-seeking behaviour and said, the stars who demanded special treatment or kept others waiting hours were invariably men. 

3. It takes more energy to change the system than simply move up in a career

As one of the early female spy recruits, Stella told us that the training they were put through would often hilariously or dangerously backfire on women because everything was designed by men for men. Not only had the women be good to advance upwards but they had to push at the structure that expected them to be men and had difficulty adjusting to their gender.

One training task Stella shared was to go into a pub, sound out a target member of the public for information then have a colleague come in and out them as a spy, and then they would need to handle this revelation. Stella was sent to a back street, smokey dive of a pub full of men in raincoats drinking on their own where any conversation with a lone woman would be seen as seductive chatting up and the subsequent reveal simply ended up rescuing her from goodness knows what!  It became clear that the system would need to adapt to handle gender differences!

Most successful women who have climbed the ladder have stories where they are the only woman in the room or at the meeting where they have been expected to pour the coffee, or had to endure executive hospitality clearly designed for men, including an expectation of joining in visits to strip joints or tagging along at a boar hunt …. but times indeed have changed and these situations are decreasing. Certainly the #MeToo era has made so many distasteful experiences openly unacceptable. 

If you want to find out more about life as a female spy then Stella Rimmington’s ten spy novels utilise her career rich with fascinating stories that she would not be able to reveal in an autobiography. I got my copy of her first book “At Risk” signed by Stella. Her autobiography also reveals the path she took to her ground-breaking role as one of the top female leaders in the UK.

I led a workshop after the main speaker session about the value of Women’s Gatherings. You can read more about that here.

Lady Val will host another lunch with an interesting female speaker on Thursday February 28th, 2019 in London. These events always sell out and are an excellent networking opportunity for women.

Great news from Scotland: New female leader inspires with a new language

Scotland is a long way from London and I would not normally follow the workings of the Scottish Parliament or find it remotely interesting.  But today the country’s new leader is making their first appearance in the house and for the first time this post is held by a woman. In fact, the one candidate she was up against was the female leader of the opposition, and her anointment in the role took place the day before in a procedure led by the first female Presiding Officer in Scotland. With the lead players at Holyrood all women I decided to watch the live streaming on BBC News of Nicola Sturgeon’s performance as First Minister taking her first Questions. She was impressive. Her language was different to what I normally hear coming from a politician’s mouth.

Anything positive spoken about a woman can be taken as a criticism of men. It’s not. I am wired to look and listen out for difference. The more we can understand the difference that women bring the better for all of us. As we search for new ways to conduct business and politics it is important to recognise the special contribution that is available by having more women in key and leadership roles.  Not just because equality of opportunity is a good thing but we need to understand, name, respect and leverage feminine qualities that will help take us all in a new direction. What struck me about Nicola Sturgeon was her language and her invitation for a different approach to dialogue.

She said she wanted to avoid  “the usual defensive ding dong” that is traditional of political discourse.    “I am open minded to any proposals that come forward from any side of the chamber as to how the government can do things better.” The topic of healthcare was raised and specifically the postcode lottery of uneven access to life-saving cancer drugs.    Again appealing for consensus, the First Minister, added: “On this issue, possibly above all other issues, it’s important that we don’t divide on party lines – these are matters of life and death for many people.” She referred to the problems being complex and not professing to have all the answers herself inviting anyone to come forward with ideas and she would make time to sit with them and listen.

I can’t ever remember a Westminster politician or male minister admitting to not having answers, saying they were open-minded and willing to listen to the opposition, or wanting to be participative and non-combative. How refreshing! I would much rather vote for a politician who said they did not have answers. We know they don’t know but they won’t admit it. What we need is their listening because it is in that open creative space of dialogue that we will find the answers that society is looking for to the myriad challenges we face.  Tell the truth I say. Name the reality.

“I’m lost …. we are lost … but let’s get together and talk about a way forward … let’s use our combined intelligence and wisdom and see what emerges from that.” Now that is the kind of speech I am interested to hear from a politician of any colour and I am inspired to discover a female leader emerge in Scotland who has the courage to ask for help. Bravo Nicola. It seems she is demonstrating what Professor Vlatka Hlupic, author of The Management Shift, would call “emergent leadership” which her research indicates is our only way forward if we want to create a sane, solvent, sustainable world.

 

Factors affecting success – what women can bring

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Deloittes

The factors affecting success: what women bring that is different

Last week on the 44th floor of what is (or perhaps once was) the tallest building in Benelux, a group of business women gathered and decided how to spend 250,000 Euros on their new venture. They were told they could not borrow any money from the bank and they had to quickly make a series of decisions which would determine whether they went bankrupt or survived and in the process, do right by the planet.

Not quite a normal day in business but then this was a game set up by Deloittes to test entrepreneurial skills and adeptness in an increasingly fast-changing world that demands profitably AND sustainability.  What made the day a little more unusual was the fact that all the participants were women. This was to be a uniquely female-only venture into successful business planning. I wondered what that might be like…

I’d had the privilege of speaking to these women in a keynote prior to the game (see transcript in previous blog post) and was also given the opportunity to have a bit of feminine influence on how the game was played. I only made some small changes but I could see that they did have an impact.

It was an interesting experiment. Here is my account of how it went with my insights summarized at the bottom…..

1. Let’s start with the tables – the physical preparation for success!    You have to pay attention to the way the environment creates the atmosphere and shapes the narrative. Are you setting the space to support debate and argument or consensus?   So first off, I wanted to change the layout of the room. As is standard for meetings, the hospitality team had spent some time getting all the lines perfectly straight with the rectangular tables. I just knew it was important to re-arrange everything. Round tables really help to bring people together as a group and build community but that was not an option here. We couldn’t do anything about the table shape so we created a herring-bone V-shape which felt much better. The room was still neat but there was more flow. It’s a subtle intervention which can have a powerful effect on the outcomes.

2. Turning a room full of strangers into a community:  

   Few of the women knew each other and this game was going to test everyone’s capacity to contribute quickly. That’s a little harder when you are sitting with strangers. When the going gets tough in business it’s the relationships you already have in place that will stand you in good stead. So I devised a warm-up bonding session to help create community very quickly. Read about the Power of Circle below. It worked a treat.

3. The Power of Circle for community building and bonding:

   For the warm-up, we had four teams, so the women took their chairs away from the tables to make 4 tight-knit groups. This supported everyone having a closer connection without the table acting as a barrier. They were given just 2 minutes each to share what had inspired them to be who they are in life now. I gave each woman an inspiration card with a random word on it and an abstract symbol.  They were to share their story in the context of this image and/or word … whatever it meant to them. That way, their thinking would move into the more expansive right brain which would elicit a get a deeper sharing. When a question makes one think, one really never knows what one is going to come up with so there’s a need to delve a little deeper …. with much richer rewards and insights!   It’s fun, it’s intuitive and it starts to engage other parts of our selves.

4. Getting everyone primed for attentive listening: 

   At first, the idea of sitting in a circle for a discussion sounds and looks a bit alien in a corporate setting, but once you are in it, it actually feels very comfortable.  Bring in a talking stick and that is of course another off-beat addition. The idea of a circle is that it supports everybody speaking, everybody being heard one at a time. What the talking stick does is let a person speak when they feel it is the right moment for them.  You can either speak in turn or allow whoever wants to go next as the mood and energy changes with the conversation. You just need to be the one holding the talking stick, or whatever is serving as the totem, and everyone else is attentive and listening. The sharing circle worked well and a community had started to form. They were beginning to get the measure of who they were and what different contributions would likely be made.

5. Game on – how will decisions be made: 

   So the programme started with each team being asked to make a series of decisions on what kind of business they would be and what strategies they would use so there was quite a lot of debate before the game actually began. The room was filled with discussion. The players later reported on their enjoyment of their democratic approach of letting everyone speak their piece and give input into the decisions being made by really feeling heard.

6. I had been asked to observe and make comments on the communication process. As the game progressed I noticed one team were further ahead so I paused the process to ask how they were managing the debate. Interestingly they were using the talking stick (in their case a green stone) taking it in turns to hold the veto or casting vote for each decision. They had taken the time early on to discuss how they would manage decision-making and it was paying off.

7. How female only teams were different:

   To say that the groups were playing a game with a time pressure, there was a tremendous sense of calm in the room. The conversations and debate had been polite, friendly with very intentional listening which had created a very harmonious atmosphere.  The groups were all very engaged and there seemed to be a strong sense of focus and togetherness with barely anyone leaving the room for a break. It was hard to interrupt them.

8. A lot of space had been created for deep listening. The groups ensured all questions were handled in a democratic way, everybody was heard fully.
9. A spirit of friendly competition still remained in this very collaborative atmosphere. There was a desire to win but as I overheard the debates, I sensed an even stronger desire to do the right thing. There was a commitment to harmony and the elegance of conversation with everyone’s contribution respected.
10. What I notice consistently in female-only groups working together is a strong desire to do whatever it takes to preserve the relationships.
11. How things are done are held as important. Good process is valued and is protected against a strong focus on simply achieving the outcomes, especially if the community and relationships are look like they will be compromised along the way.

In summary:
It would be a mistake to conclude from this exercise that women-only groups are in any way better. What does emerge, is an opportunity to witness feminine energy be more present in the business context in the absence of any men participating. It is a chance for women to have a greater understanding of what happens when feminine qualities are magnified away from the presence of men. As I pointed out to the group during our concluding insights, research shows that balanced teams are more successful than male-only or female-only.

Both genders are bringing something different. This occasion was an opportunity to get a greater sense of what women can bring that is different from the dominant male culture.

• Deeper listening: The circle style of conversation provided a communication structure that better supported this.
• Inclusive debate: The groups exhibited a higher level of commitment to making sure that all were heard.
• Relationships were valued. There was a high level of sensitivity as many participants were working together for the first time
• Decision-making seemed to be very inclusive with all contributions sought and welcomed; and even those who were against the majority decision were given airtime to check that their views were included.

 

How women can lead with their feminine qualities

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Deloittes

I was invited to Deloittes Netherlands to talk about how women can develop an edge in their leadership by embracing more of their feminine qualities and values. The world in the second decade of the 21st century is one that is requiring more collaborative working styles and more empathetic, intuitive, compassionate environments that are increasingly being shown to help people thrive … and as a consequence these are bringing in more profit. With some of the largest companies in the world now showing a greater profitably when they have more women on the Board and in executive positions, compared to those led by male-only boards, the question of how to leverage the power of women in a way that is not being done now, needs to be at the top of every company agenda.

Deloittes have a Women-to-the-Top initiative and three of their women leaders, Marieke Treffers, Kelly Pender  and Hilary Richters invited me over from the UK to speak at a women-only session where they planned to play a Business Game that tests your leadership and collaborative decision-making skills. I was to providing the pre-game content that spoke of the power of feminine leadership. Here is a brief summary of what I talked about with other blog posts (to come) that will share more insights from the day ……

• I noted how unusual it is for women to gather in a business professional setting without any men. We don’t often have that chance, if at all. Usually, if we ever meet as women-only it is in more social contexts and environments. Today we were going to play with that opportunity to experience the difference of just using our feminine energy.
• My passion is to explore new solutions to create change in the world. This includes looking at new kinds of leadership and specifically what women can bring …not just ourselves as part of a gender headcount, but our feminine qualities and traits. These are so often held back because they are not welcomed and embraced by the Dominant Culture. As most corporate people say …. that soft stuff is a bit of a distraction and not seen as relevant to the main thrust of business.
• In explaining my work and writing about the Rise of the Feminine (title of my forthcoming book) it is important to note that the bigger picture is about men and women working together and blending their different energies and contributions, once they have been recognised. It’s all about balanced teams, balanced decision-making and balanced leadership.
• I noted that progress has been slow.  The journey that women have made in the last four decades in particular, from the kitchen and home to being able to be Captains of Industry, and not just half the workforce, is stellar when you look back over hundreds of years of being held back and marginalised. However in the second decade of the 21st century, women are anything from 2% of CEOs (top 100-200 companies) and 5-20% of Board Members. Will we ever make it to 50% or the 40% that some countries are regulating for?  New thinking is needed.
• Whilst regulations for Company Board positions are a key driver, they don’t necessarily solve the problem and keep women in the pipeline that serves those top exec positions within companies. Women are not always leaving because they can’t get through the glass ceiling .. some don’t like what they see on the other side of the glass and are unwilling to pay the price.  Big change is needed and that takes a higher level of engagement by women, actively supported by men. In fact, there’s a need for men to move from simply approving female-focussed initiatives to driving them and really getting behind the problem.
• So why don’t women make it up through the pipeline? I talked about how many women report that they feel unseen, misunderstood, unheard by men … yes there is actual research to show that some men (and it amplifies with age) cannot hear the softer higher tones of women. (I have written about that before).
• I explained the cultural undercurrents that form so much of the conscious and unconscious conditioning of human societies. The work of Dr Riane Eisler and her book “Caring Economics & The Real Wealth of Nations” provides an excellent blueprint for explaining how so much of what women stand for and contribute is perceived as being worth less in society today.  Dr Eisler talks about the two opposing paradigms for organising human behaviour: Hierarchy and Partnership.
• The Dominant Culture today, so very steeped in hierarchy is having challenges adapting to the changes that are coming as women and feminine values rise.   A recent example I quoted is the news article reporting that female CEOs are more likely to be fired than their male counterparts…. seven times more likely if they have come from outside the organisation.  Men are far less patient of any perceived failing performance by women. I recently discovered a new phrase that describes this … the GLASS CLIFF.
• I documented my own journey from being a bullied senior exec leaving a top job in the newspaper industry in the mid 1980s (now that’s a LOOOONG time ago!!) which then spurred me into being a successful and award-winning business owner. I was definitely Action Woman completely embracing all my masculine achievement traits (quite unconsciously), even in my own enterprise, and that led to serious burn-out and a long period of re-invention in new fields. Over the years, and a phase feeling very invisible and lost as an older woman in a society favouring youth, I found my new direction and energy by understanding what my feminine qualities could bring to my life and success. My latest incarnation, called by poet George Hardwick an “entrepreneurial queen of grace” feels a better description of a new and more productive, wiser, authentic self.
• I proposed that the era of women striving to be seen as Equal and the Same, where the conversation is about women being able to do a job as good-as-a-man, needs to be replaced with Equal and Different. Now it is the time for women to reconnect with their unexplored feminine side, become familiar with these traits, and bring them to bear in the much-needed transition process to a new way of working, living, being and leading.
• The Athena Doctrine book and research data of 64,000 people was referenced. This is a superb resource. Co-author John Gerzema writes about 32,000 people canvassed for their opinion on which of a long list of values were either feminine, masculine or neutral. Another 32,000 people across the globe were asked to list the qualities of the ideal modern leader. Not surprisingly (well not to me) 90% of those traits are feminine with the research vocalising that people (men and women) expressly want to turn away from proud, independent, uncollaborative leadership styles… so very much a signature of the Dominant Culture. If ever there was a mandate for women to step forward and lead change as their authentic selves, the Athena Doctrine provides the evidence and blueprint.
• These feminine values and traits have been left out of the corporate sphere for so long that it is very difficult for most people, men and women, to grasp how to bring them in. I shared stories about where I have seen collaboration, community-building, inclusive-thinking, healing and compassion played out at the highest level on the world stage. Change is happening and role models for different decision-making and leadership practised by both men and women, are there for us to follow now.
• Practical tools were promised and I talked through a number of ways that women can act, think and speak differently to leverage their feminine power. The two main recommendations were 1) to utilise the circle as an advanced and simple methodology for communication in meetings where everybody is more engaged, and 2) for women to focus on community-building in their organisations instead of simply networking. It is in these community gatherings, women can practice holding their personal power in a different way. The rewards of both circle communication and women-only gatherings are outstanding for higher levels of engagement, performance and success.
• My Keynote now completed we moved on to the next part of the event which was the playing of a business game that allows teams to explore (in an online business fantasy world) the impacts of risk-taking, and the pressure to make quick decisions in a fast-changing world to sustain a profitable business where the context is securing the needs of people, profit and planet.  Of course, working together as a team is important to the game so as a primer, I led a pre-game session of community building.
• There is nothing quite like sitting in a circle sharing stories to bring a group of strangers together quickly and help build relationship for effective working.
• Sharing a personal story that introduces you is a particularly powerful way to bond.
• Read my next blog post for more insights from this day

If you want to review the actual slides then check them out on my slideshare profile

The unconscious bias that impedes women’s progress to the top

 

 The illusion of gender equality

You can pass all the laws you like about equality of the sexes but until we tackle our own internal stereotyping about what we ourselves think about men and women, progress to real and full equality will continue at the current glacial pace.

There is an almost daily conversation about advancing women to the top and getting more of them onto Boards. Forcing companies to rebalance gender at senior levels with legislation around quotas has few fans as women, and men, want everyone to succeed through merit but the odds are often stacked against women without any of us realising.

According to Professor Correll from the Michelle Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford university, an unconscious gender bias against women has replaced the blatant sexism of previous decades. It’s invisibility makes it much more difficult to counter yet its effect continues to hold women back without … and we all seem to be part of the unconscious thinking that drives our judgements and decisions.

A Leaders Club Event in London April 10th

If you are in London you can join a conversation about the steps we can all take in correcting the gender balance at the top of business. Thursday April 10th the Leaders Club has an invite – do join us – find out more on this blog posting.
WATCH THE VIDEO: Transcript of my conversation with Professor Shelley Correll

Gina Lazenby:  I wanted to talk to you about your work around unconscious bias, where you share the findings from sending out the same CVs, with one set had a man’s name on and the other set had a woman’s name on.

Shelley Correll: the progress that we have made around the world that is where blatant bias and sexism has gone away. What we’re left with is the more unconscious kind of bias. This is harder to deal with because it is subtle and of course unseen. The blatant stuff is easier to see and root out.  At the Institute we have been doing a lot of training is to reduce the unconscious bias. One of the studies that we cite a lot is one that was done in the field of psychology, is where CV’s were sent out to universities applying for a brand new PhD faculty position in a psychology department. They got the receiving Department to rate the CV. Half of the CVs had a man’s name on, the other half had a woman’s name on. A perfect design to check out if a bias was there.

With a man’s name, the applicant is a much higher chance of success
Not only did the researchers find out that people greatly preferred the man over the woman – that is they saw him as being worthy of hire – the gap was astonishingly large. It was a 30% gap between recommending the man be hired versus the woman be hired.  That was in 1995. Have things got better since?  In 2012 a similar study was done in the USA for a person applying to be a Science Lab Manager. The same research design and it was sent to science faculties all over the USA. Sure enough in 2012 we found the same patterns.  The faculty doing the rating said they were more likely to hire the man and the woman; if they were going to hire the man they were going to pay him a higher salary; and they said they were more likely to mentor the man should he be hired.

20 years after the study, research shows women are STILL disadvantaged
We see women being disadvantaged across all those dimensions, even in 2012, even in a Science Faculty where we might expect more objectivity. There is no reason to believe that these people set out to do bad things, it’s just that gender is affecting how they see the applicant, even without them being aware of it. And that is a really tough problem that we have been working on.

These things come about because we are quickly categorising people without even thinking about it.  And if we didn’t do that then we wouldn’t be able to make it through the day. When you go to sit down in a chair you have never seen before you don’t stop and puzzle over it being  chair. You couldn’t get through life without being able to take these shortcuts … that’s what’s happening here, unfortunately it is introducing bias into our evaluations. It is the kind of thing that we have to be very diligent about paying attention to – how it is that we are evaluating men versus women and very much self-monitoring our decision making.

We have to think about what we think about!
GL: I think that is right, when you point out about shortcuts in our thinking. This is where we can pause and be more conscious of our thinking. On the basis that this is happening, and you have done this research in America, I am sure it will be the same in the UK … what about this question of quotas that people talk about. If I was a senior woman in a senior position in a large organisation and they talked about quotas, if I project myself out into that situation, if I got promoted I would wonder “is it because i am good or is it because I am filling up the numbers”? So I can see the resistance but the rate of change is so glacial, what do you think about the conversation about quotas?

Increasing  the numbers of women is important, we need to find more creative ways
SC: It really is a double-edged sword. On the one hand change has been so slow and so putting a quota up there immediately starts to change the numbers and changing the numbers are extremely important … I think we know that getting more women into positions of power is extremely important not only for equality but for our societies, for our businesses and all of that but you’re right it comes at a cost and the cost is that you as a woman might think “oh, was I really talented enough to be here?”.

Even if you think you were, those people around you might suspect that you are there because of the quota not because you are talented. And so I think that is the negative side of it … to me if there was some other way to get women into those positions without a quota that’s what I would prefer. It’s just I don’t know what that is. I think we have to manage the stigma that could become associated with women if people think they are in those positions just to fill a slot.

It reminds me of one of my colleagues here who was the first female law professor at the Stanford Law School. Someone asked her when she got the job how it felt to get the job because she was a woman, she said it feels a lot better than not getting the job because I was a woman. As that has been my experience before!

GL: You are right, it is a challenging discussion, but I think even just talking about it pushes the agenda forward. The threat of it, the possibility pushes the conversation forward.

Young people now seeking careers in more gender equitable companies

SC:  In the USA, with quotas, it’s a bad word .. I think similar things that have been done are where people publish data about law firms, with the percentage of partners that are women … they put them up when students are looking for jobs and the companies respond to that because young students today want to work in places that are gender equitable. You put those numbers up there to shame people and draw attention to it. I think that helps as well.

GL: Providing information, being transparent, I think that is the key isn’t it.

Read about another conversation with Professor Correll on the Motherhood Penalty and watch the video.

Join us at the event in London on April 10th to discuss actions we can rake to start leveling the playing field.

 

London Event aimed at leveling the playing field for women

Let’s make it a Level Playing Field

The conversation about why more women are not at the top of corporations, as CEOs and Board members continues to gather momentum, both in the UK and in most developed countries.

Next Thursday April 10th in London, the Leaders Club (TLC) presents an important event aimed at driving this conversation forward and debating practical actions to recommend that will come from a cross-section of the business community.

Two events were originally held in London and Liverpool at the start of the year focusing on the conversation “Women in Business: where is the level playing field?” and were attended by over 80 professionals involved in management, coaching, human resources and training development.

A report of the two evening discussions highlighted many issues but a clear strand emerged that showed a need to move beyond discussion and outline clear practical actions.  Quite clearly the playing field is not level so creative conversations about new actions are necessary.  What ideas will emerged to be championed?

The event on 10th April will pick up on 3 of these key themes that emerged: (read more about the event and BOOK)

• The Conflict Dilemma – where WORK is seemingly at odds with LIFE, how this affects everyone not just women
• The Confidence Issue – from some angles it looks like women need fixing or changing. What can women do,  how can the system support them and what needs to change in the system.
• Looking Ahead: The Next Generation of women leaders prepared now

What can we actually DO to create a more level playing field for women in business? The focus of the discussions will take on these 4 areas:

1. Celebrate differences, reward performance and focus on outcomes: how can we impact business culture to be more accommodating to the integration of work, life and family?
2. Leadership development and culture change.
3. Reality check on what it takes to get to the top.
4. The “Quotas and Representation” issue: what creative alternatives can we come up with that build on the idea of quotas but which do not involve legislation?

If you have an interest in Leadership then you are welcome to join the conversation on Thursday April 10th.  The Leadership Club is a unique forum for members to exchange ideas and best practice and develop new approaches.  It is an unparalleled networking organisation, where members are encouraged to use their expertise and experience to inspire leaders of the future. The Club’s exclusive membership is made up of leading practitioners in top management, leadership and learning and development.
 Members are drawn from key organisations, large and small, from the private, public and services sectors, as well as the military.

From my first participation in January I can report that I met some very interesting people and found the group

 

What is feminine wisdom?

Gina Lazenby live on Preston FM Radio talking about feminine wisdom and feminine leadership with Hughie Parr

.. that was the question that came across my desk a couple of weeks ago and the unlikely questioner was Brian Ashman, the Station manager of Preston FM … who? Quite!

From left field … I might live and breath conversations about feminine wisdom and feminine leadership but I really was quite astounded to receive a request from a local radio station especially since it wasn’t from a woman hosting a female magazine show …. it was from two guys. Brilliant!  Listen to the interview here.

What to say?  I thought about creating a crisp definitive explanation of feminine wisdom (good luck at finding anything in the dictionary) and as I mused over this I put out a question to my tribe of friends for their thoughts.

Then I got it. Just show up. When I sat down with Hughie he introduced me saying that normally he would do research for an interview with a guest, make lots of notes and have a list of questions. This time he just had “Gina Lazenby. Feminine Wisdom” on his pad! Nothing else.  I laughed. I said that I too would normally do my own research, plan what I wanted to say and have a crib sheet or mindmap in front of me as a prompt. Today I had nothing.

My guidance was to show up, to calmly be me, be present to whatever question came my way and to bring forth a reply of whatever needed to be said in that moment. For me … that in itself summed up feminine wisdom! Presence, guidance, inner wisdom, intuition, listening, speaking from the heart, grace, trust, allowing your authentic voice to come through ….  I felt that it was a beautifully simple reinforcement of what I do. It can be pretty scary sometimes but then it’s all about trust … trusting that we have all we need inside.

Listen to the short interview … online here.

We talked about how wisdom is missing from society today, the lack of ‘wise woman’ in the dictionary …. onto … female (as he called it) leadership, the lack of women in British parliament, the number of new women MPs who don’t propose to run in the next election, the invisible male culture, why women leave corporate life ……. and so much more

Qualities of feminine leadership

Following on from the three previous posts and videos reporting from our evening in London with Dr David Paul, I thought you might like to also review the feedback from the group discussion.

GROUP DISCUSSION …..
What are the leadership qualities of women that will help build robust structures?
What are the qualities that women are bringing to achieve these better results?

Group One

• Women’s natural ability to collaborate
• To ask for opinions
• Research is showing that 85% of intelligence is emotional intelligence, something which is much more natural for women – sometimes, being known as ‘emotional’ is spoken about as being a negative trait in women, but it is actually very positive.
• The women who have become leaders: they have developed the confidence to trust their instincts;
• They listen to the people around them not only listening to what is being said but also what is NOT being said. This leads them to ask more questions giving people the space to fully express more of their ideas.

Group Two

• Grace  – coming from their experience and knowledge
• Compassion coming from deep experience
• Courage – women have generally have had to break through barriers and shift out of her comfort zone
• Accepting of people
• Engender trust in those around them
• Treat people with respect, so they feel listened to
• Inclusive … treating people as equals
• Respectful
• Open
• Create an atmosphere of friendship and trust where people can do their best
• Nurture and take care of people
• A mother’s instinct for life … they want to protect (even for women who are not parents)
• Shakti power … very powerful !

Group Three
The moral compass applies to men and women

• Love
• Collaboration
• Trust and honesty
• Caring
• Family and tribe
• Nourishing and nurturing
• Co-creating
• Cooperating rather than competition because that creates separateness
• Listening

Group Four

• Awareness, noticing things in context and really listening holistically, being fully aware
• Service – it’s not about me
• Quiet persistence, not a big force…. like water dripping on a stone
• Ability to integrate and cross boundaries
• Harmonizing

Group Five

• Leaning in, whole body, full body … really listening
• Inclusivity
• Compassionate
• Vulnerability
• Empathetic
• Authentic
• Spatial awareness
• Emotional intelligence
• Body awareness
• Heart centredness
• Curiosity
• Excellence
• Strength
• Care
• Love
• Intuition
• Relatedness
• Creativity & co-creativity
• Collaboration
• Tend and Befriend
• Generative
• Generosity
• Curiosity
• Support and championing
• Ferocity
• Bitch Goddess!
• Integrity
• Non-judgement

The Athena Doctrine book by Dr John Gerzema & Michael A’Antonio presents traits and attributes which a research group of 64,000 people ascribed to either feminine or masculine, or neutral, and then mapped out these same traits that were desired for future Leadership, Morality, Happiness and Success. These key desirable traits are: Intuitive, expressive, reasonable, collaborative, passionate, empathetic, selfless, flexible, loyal and plans for the future, and they were all listed under the category that the research group agreed were feminine.

Three traits of great women leaders

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Dr David Paul, Video Interview

Gina Lazenby opens: David you work with some very high profile women leaders … tell us something about how they got there. What makes them different to get to where they have got to? We only know them through the filter of the media, we don’t really know what they are like.

Three particular qualities of women’s leadership
Dr David Paul responds: Let’s look at three particular qualities that they have. And I’m not talking about managing, I am talking about leading. Very, very different.

1 Credibility
how credible are you with your message ….. And the message does not change by the way. It’s not a different message every day.  It’s the credibility of the individual …. And as a result of that credibility you have the credibility of the message.

2 Connection  – a bringing together of heart and mind
Connection also means relationship, and collaboration. It has to be what’s called a true connection. Not just: it’s nice to meet you.  Not just having strong networks but having a holistic approach to that connection. So that you are engaging the whole of me not just the mind part of me or not just the heart part of me. It’s a bringing together of the heart and mind in a very different way. If you practice that in 2014 you’ll see the difference that you will make. People will notice, they will say what has she got? I want some of that. You will be emanating the energy of true connection, people will feel this.

3 Being truly authentic
The depth of that should transform every interaction when you are truly authentic. You don’t have to strive to change something, it comes to you because you are being.

GL: Have you noticed that some of the women you have worked with have become more authentic when they have moved into their top high-profile leadership position? Sometimes perhaps women try to be who they think people want them to be because the way to reach people has been through the filter of the media. So we don’t necessarily know who these women really are … it seems to me that when these women get to high places of power they become different when they are there. Are you saying that they are authentic all the way through this journey to the top and it’s maybe the way the media are presenting them?

DP: Those who we truly respect and venerate, not those who we see through the media lens …. For those there is no media lens. It is just who they are. Talking about Gandhi and Mother Theresa, you don’t see them in any different light through the media than who they truly are/were. There is an authentic beingness. It is something that transcends presentation.

GL: The last couple of years the key word has been authenticity. That’s the journey for all of us now, to get into that space, especially with the different way that we communicate now with social media. We are in direct communication with the world instead of having a PR company present our image to the world. There used to be a separation where there was the work me, and the private me. It’s all the same now. It’s not about hiding anything, it’s about who am I and how do I present myself to the world?

Authenticity is the key to a new leadership
DP: When we are authentic there is no need for ego. We say that in a room full of egos, everyone goes out stupid because that is what the ego does. It prevents you from being that. And I think the connection between leadership and the collective is about being truly authentic. There is something that we have forgotten about being authentic in our journey towards profits and achieving something.

GL: It’s not in our culture and it’s not in our business training. We focus more on the image that we present to the world than we do authenticity. There is no honesty there. What I have seen in British politics is that if individuals speak as an authentic voice with messages that they feel they need to express, rather than towing the party line ….. They either have a very short a life in politics or they get towed in. Politics has not so far allowed the people to be authentic voices.

Attention to ‘Being’ is the way to authenticity
DP: I think is not about allowing something it’s about being, because the moment that you allow you have to deal with so many variables … but when you are truly being you there is a level of credibility that nothing can touch. And the power of the collective is power of being authentic.

QUESTION FOR GROUP DISCUSSION …..
What are the leadership qualities of women that will help build robust structures?
What are the qualities that women are bringing to achieve these better results? … see the transcript of the report back from the group.